Career

Three things you need to learn:
The first thing to learn is why there is really no such thing as a certified ethical hacker and comprehend why the terms certified and hacker are orthogonal.
To put it bluntly, the moment you get certified, you are no longer a hacker. Unless you choose to buy into our cultures morphing of the word hacker - wherein it has been modified from "One who, with little or no formal training, enjoys exploring the limits of what is possible in a field, typically in a spirit of playful cleverness. You don't get certified to do this, and getting certified more powerfully indicates that you are not doing it.
Certificates are for authenticating to people who trust the certificate authority. A better question, who trusts EC-Council and why?
Second, you can't be certified as ethical. At the end of the day, you are either an ethical individual or not. Trust is far more important and fragile in this community than a mere certificate can even begin to communicate. Background checks and individual relationships (references) will reveal far more of your ethics than a certificate. If you intend to be an ethical hacker, start with being an ethical individual, with a trustworthy character, and never cease.
Third, hack stuff! Figure it out, enjoy it, do something epic and cool with it. Learn it like your tongue knows the roof or your mouth. Invest time and energy and life in enjoying hacking things. Hack the washing machine, hack your refrigerator, hack the car, hack your significant other, have kids and hack them too.
Without changing the meaning of words, sticking the term certified in there merely screams of intellectual arrogance.
Be an ethical individual who hacks stuff, and one day, those closest to you will certify that you are indeed an ethical hacker.